The Dirty Secret Of Air-pollution Clean-up

May 5, 1995|By RAY ARCHER and The Arizona Republic

Call it the dirty little secret of government-mandated attempts to clean up the polluted air over America's cities.

Oh, it's really not a secret at all. The Environmental Protection Agency is cognizant of it. Federal and state lawmakers know about it as well. It's just that government at all levels just doesn't want to talk about it.

Even the vast majority of motorists who are required to have annual emissions tests on their vehicles (or every two years here in Arizona) know the secret, although they might not be aware of it .

The secret is that most autos and light trucks on the road contribute the least to vehicular pollution, the prime component of dirty air. Most motorists only have to look at their cars' passing test results to grasp it. Compared with the allowable limits, most vehicles emit minuscule amounts of the chemicals - hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, etc. - that dirty the air.

Conversely, a small number of vehicles spew out vast amounts of smog-causing emissions. Estimates are that the dirtiest 10 percent of the vehicles on the road emit more than half the total pollution.

It's not difficult to understand why. Because of advances in pollution-controlling technology, today's auto emissions are estimated to be nearly 100 times cleaner than the models of 30 years ago. The "colossal stinkers," Car and Driver's Patrick Bedard says, literally emit their weight in carbon monoxide in a year of driving. One California regulator told Bedard about "half-pounders and quarter-pounders" - cars found to emit as much as a half-pound or quarter-pound of CO per mile. New cars sold in that state, by comparison, must emit less than .00075 pound of CO per mile.

So, if we are truly looking for a "scientific" approach to controlling air pollution, the data would indicate that the best approach would be to control the pollution emitted by the gross violators. As Bedard puts it: "If just one-tenth of the fleet stayed home ... the air would be 50 percent clearer - a miracle."

If the goal is clean air, science has identified the problem - and the solution. Trouble is, it's politics, not science, that formulates public policy. Instead of targeting gross polluters, policy-makers have mandated universal testing, which is less efficient and more costly.

Even when gross polluters are identified in annual or biennial testing, they can continue to pollute so long as they spend enough in repairs to get a waiver. If the goal is to clean up the air, that doesn't make sense.

What's the answer? We're using alternative fuels, but the gross polluters typically don't use them.

We could launch a buy-back program to purchase older vehicles, which generally pollute more than new ones. The millions spent on less-efficient universal testing would buy a lot of those old heaps.

But, as Bedard notes, new studies show that some older, well-maintained vehicles emit far less than newer poorly running ones or those whose pollution controls have been tampered with. Junking cars merely because they're old misses the target.

What would hit the target, however, is remote sensing, which, like photo radar used to capture speeders, would "inspect" and identify gross polluters 365 days a year. Arizona currently is working the bugs out of its plan to use six remote-sensing devices to detect and corral emissions violators. The program should be up and running next month.

Such a strategy might not appeal to the typical command-and-control mentality of government, but it makes sense, both fiscally and scientifically: It nabs the gross polluters without inconveniencing everyone else.

The secret's out. What we do about it will determine how effectively we clear the air.